


Verdict's Aftermath

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: NCIS
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Dynamics, Character Study, Episode Tag, Gen, Introspection, Tony DiNozzo Is Not Stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-18
Updated: 2008-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was as if having former Director Jenny Shepard lying in a drawer in the morgue was not enough, for her replacement had now resolutely dismembered her primary team. Perhaps that was when the scales had finally tipped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breaking Stasis

**Author's Note:**

> This is the conversation I wish they would have, but one I know we will never see—the one that happens when there are no others present and they can speak freely. I spent some time fiddling with perspective, so it starts wide and narrows to focus on Tony and Gibbs. The comments from Ziva about the Mossad, as well as the quote, are credited to and based on Victor Ostrovsky’s _By Way of Deception_ ; dates are taken from season numbers and episode air dates (if anyone has specifics or corrections, please let me know).
> 
> Spoilers: 5x18/5x19 ["Judgement Day"]; general season spoilers; references my [_Cold Burning_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/175362) piece.

The former Major Case Squad of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service stood almost awkwardly in the bullpen, for the first time in long years unsure of both one another and Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ infamous ability to set things right. To say that life had been set on its head was an understatement at best, but it seemed that a sufficient description for the events of the past two days really didn’t exist. Since leaving the Director’s office hours ago, not a single one of them had found the heart—or perhaps the gumption—to make their way down to the forensics lab and explain to Abby Sciuto that their team was no longer a team, that as if having former Director Jenny Shepard lying in a drawer in the morgue was not enough, her replacement had resolutely dismembered her primary team. Gazes skipped off one another as each of them stood by their desks, waiting for… something, though it was debatable if any of them knew what, exactly.

Timothy McGee, computer genius relocated to the Cyber Crimes Unit, had no reason whatsoever to still be there. Director Vance (as though wanting accelerated proof that his orders were being carried out) had personally sent people to help haul his things to his new desk, and the last box had been moved fifteen minutes ago. But somehow, despite hating the look of his now-empty desk and feeling the battery of the laptop under his arm imprinting itself into his skin, McGee couldn’t bring himself to leave. Perhaps he was waiting for the apocalypse; for a miracle; for a time warp; for an overzealous gameshow host to appear and tell him it was all a joke; but whatever it was, he wasn’t the only one not ready to say goodbye. The entirety of his NCIS experience outside of Norfolk could be tied to that bullpen, to that desk, from his first time TAD under Gibbs to the announcement that he’d been promoted to full-time field agent… to his first kill on the job… to watching his sister be accused of murder… to serving as senior field agent in Gibbs’ absence after nineteen men and the entire _Cape Fear_ had been lost to bureaucratic hypocrisy. Anyone else might have seen fit to call it sentimental stupidity, told him that it was just a desk, but that now seemed irrelevant.

Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David, former senior field agent and Mossad liaison respectively, held their NCIS careers to date in boxes on the other side of the bullpen. The former was shipping out the following morning on the USS Reagan as Agent Afloat; the latter was returning to Tel Aviv to resume her position with the Mossad—or so it was assumed. Tony still looked… haunted, the shadows in his eyes not quite banished, his guilt over Shepard’s death not yet absolved. He held no illusions over his new position: Agent Afloat was a technical promotion; in reality, it was Vance’s way of punishing him for not following through with Shepard’s protection detail, for letting her set herself up to die. It didn’t matter that he had been following orders—hell, the Germans had said that—and he didn’t need Vance to tell him that was the one set of orders he should have never obeyed. His seven years with the agency under Gibbs, lasting a good five years longer than any of his other previous positions, had been weighed only from a political standpoint: Vance had no true cause to demote him and was well aware of this fact, so he settled for a move that would satisfy on paperwork and still serve as the slap he felt was warranted. Tony bore it with grim resignation. He wasn’t arrogant enough to consider himself a martyr; as far as he was concerned, he deserved worse. It didn’t matter that Shepard’s personal vendetta had unwittingly torn his heart out; he knew her now as more than Director, as more than Gibbs’ former partner, for however many ways that could be taken, and he told himself he had gotten a friend killed.

Ziva, for all her badgering to double-check Shepard’s location and safety, blamed neither Tony nor herself. That didn’t in any way lessen her desire to murder Vance, but two years in America had tempered her assassin’s instincts. Though she was still inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, she no longer limited those shots to kills. Her time under Gibbs, a political play Shepard had chosen in the aftermath of Agent Caitlin Todd’s death, had slowly been accepted, a process slightly expedited once she’d learned to stop drilling her teammates like they were fellow Mossad. Now, standing in the bullpen staring at the people she had been shocked to realise she had come to care about, to like, she found herself wishing she could find a way to stay. Of course, as circumstances would have it, she and Tony had lost their hold on the Director (or perhaps it was the other way around), and now the whole team had been—at least metaphorically—hanged. But where her partner… former partner, she amended mentally, felt guilt, she was left with resignation and anger. Resignation because what was done was done, and she had been taught the hard way that dwelling on the past made it no different; anger because of needless death and the vindictive retribution that served only as a power play. That play was trying to sever her ties to America, because she knew as well as any that the chances of her returning to the States were slim at best. If she returned at all, it would be for the Mossad, and there was little in training that made room for socialisation. She found herself wanting words for almost the first time in her life. Actions had usually suited her purposes, whether to gain information or eliminate an enemy; in this case, knowing that though the others could see one another, her chances of the same held far poorer odds, she wanted something to say that would make a suitable goodbye. Unfortunately, there was no such thing, and it did not matter at all whether she tried in Hebrew, English, Russian, Turkish, French, or German.

“What are you all standing there for?”

Gibbs’ gruff comment broke the silence, surprising them all. Eloquent he was not, but they were all on some level expecting something… different, something that acknowledged tomorrow would not see them together. Gibbs surprised himself on some level, but he was abysmal at communication, and there were reasons he’d been divorced three times. Normally, Tony would have bounced back first with some snappy comment or obscure movie reference meant to restore equilibrium. Today, his face remained painfully impassive, to the point of blankness, and though Gibbs never appeared to look up, he noticed. If he noticed nothing else, he noticed the silence.

McGee, uncharacteristically, spoke first. “Uh, just… thank you, boss.”

“Not your boss anymore, McGee,” came the almost mild reminder.

“Right.”

The simple statement seemed to thrust the younger man back into speechlessness, but before he could find his tongue again, the former Marine stood, pushing back his chair and coming around his desk. He stopped and looked to his youngest charge, meeting his gaze but refusing to say you’re welcome because it sounded too much like goodbye. The eyes of the other agent screamed what he could not bring himself to say aloud, begging him to make things right. And somehow, Gibbs—down to the second “b” for “Bastard”—didn’t have the heart to tell McGee that this time he wasn’t sure he could fix everything. Instead, he just gave a minute nod, and the relief, the hope he saw was almost painful.

Ziva stepped forward then, catching his attention before he could speak aloud, before he could headslap McGee and ask why he was still standing there, before he could try to convince himself that there was nothing wrong with this day and his agents didn’t now belong to someone else.

“We are even this time, Jethro,” she said softly, stopping just in front of him.

“We are, Ziva,” he answered with another nod, accepting her statement for what it was: thanks, assertion, questions, farewell.

If enough strings could be pulled, he’d see her stay in the States, but he would not promise what he could not guarantee. Her measured, dark gaze shifted until it held his, searching for answers he did not have. She dipped her head in an abbreviated bow, suddenly, surprising him.

“I shall see you again.” Because you will fix this. It went unsaid, and, as with McGee, he simply nodded, because right now he didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth, either.

“Gibbs?”

The bullpen froze collectively, like a synchronised swim team that had been practicing for years too long to count, as Abby bounced in and stopped, a bemused expression flitting across her features. Even in mourning, her irrepressible energy pushed through to the surface, and she had been the one spot of normalcy in the whole damn building. They had wanted to keep her that way, but if the look on her face was any indication, there wasn’t much success to be had in that department.

Gibbs turned slowly to face her; in any other man, the move could have been called hesitant, but the word would never fit him no matter what he did, so “slow” it remained. The last time, when he’d left, he’d said what he couldn’t say aloud with his hands on her shoulders and a kiss on her cheek; this time, he wasn’t the one leaving and had nothing he could say—there was no gesture that would suddenly make this okay, that would make her understand, and suddenly he found himself glad that Ziva and Tony were blocking the way to Vance’s office. If they weren’t, Abby might well go and kill him herself once she found out.

“Abbs,” he started softly, both unable and unwilling to pretend nothing was wrong, at least to her, but she cut him off.

“Tony? Ziva? What are you guys doing with those boxes?” She glanced at McGee, her voice rising in both pitch and volume until it bordered on hysteria. “McGee? Why’s your desk so empty?” Panicked grey-green eyes turned back to Gibbs, begging for some sane explanation from her silver fox. “Gibbs? What’s going on?”

He paused, trying to find a tactful way to explain, but Tony saved him, breaking in quietly from where he was.

“Abby.”

Her attention caught, she swung around to focus on him, eyes demanding that the truth not be possible. He couldn’t give her that, but he already had her attention, and it was too late to shut up now.

“Vance split the team, Abbs. Ziva and I are leaving DC; everyone else stays at headquarters.”

“What? No!” Backing up a step as though putting distance between herself and Tony would somehow lessen the impact of the truth, she walked into McGee instead. She was preoccupied enough that she didn’t notice his wince when she stood squarely on his toes. “How could he? Where are you going?”

“USS Reagan. Tomorrow morning.”

“Tel Aviv. The same.”

Somewhat desperately, Abby latched on to the first thing that presented perspective: Ziva’s flight plan. “How’d you get a flight so quickly?”

“Ah, the Director had to be in touch with the Mossad to explain the terminator of my position,” she answered, looking almost embarrassed at the sudden spotlight. “They are sending an agency plane.”

And objective went out the window, because everything led back to the damned white polar bear currently inhabiting NCIS.

“Terminated, Ziva,” Tony corrected her, and this time the tiredness might not have been affected. “The Terminator’s a movie—Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1984… he’s also California’s governor.”

Trying to not to realise how much she’d miss that, Ziva paused, then nodded. “I stand corrected.”

The normalcy and complete absurdity of the exchange almost helped ease the tension. Almost. Then Abby turned to McGee, and he answered, “CCU, under Agent Pantelo,” and the reminder slammed them back into the surrealism of their current reality.

“This is because the Dir—Director Shepard died.”

It was a statement, not a question, and Tony for a moment looked as though he’d been slapped; a fleeting expression of what might have been pain crossed Gibbs’ face; Ziva glanced away; McGee flinched. All of it was aborted quickly, but the damage was done.

“Yeah, Abbs,” Tony answered finally.

She sat down hard on the edge of McGee’s desk, staring at the floor. “This is all wrong,” she muttered, half to herself. “She shouldn’t be dead.”

This time it was Tony who flinched, but no one saw it. They were all staring at Abby like she was the timer on a ticking bomb; only this time, no one really knew how to disarm it. Then her gaze locked on Gibbs like a compass needle on North.

“You’ll fix this, right? You have to fix this, bossman!”

For a long moment, he just looked at her, for once thrown by being put on the spot. Lying to Abby was out of the question—he never had and never would—but he wasn’t sure how to tell her he didn’t know if he could fix this, no matter how many strings he pulled or the number of people he yelled at.

“How’s he supposed to do that, Abbs?” Tony saved him again. Sort of. He didn’t answer the question, but he did pull Abby’s focus away.

“He will!” she insisted. “He’s Gibbs!”

“And if he can’t? If it’s not tomorrow?” The questions were soft, not meant solely for Abby, an attempt to pull some of the weight from Gibbs’ shoulders and channel expectation into anger and redirect it at himself. It worked, perhaps too well.

“Just because you couldn’t even keep track of the Director doesn’t mean—”

The bullpen went silent at the accusation that didn’t even make sense. The two of them had been friends for years, once they’d gotten past the initial tension when Tony had joined Gibbs’ team. When he’d comprised the whole of that team, a mutual appreciation of one another’s quirks had arisen and eventually resulted in a surprisingly sibling-like relationship. For Abby to lash out at him, especially when it wasn’t warranted, was… unheard of—even when he’d been framed two years ago, her faith in him had never wavered.

But it seemed they were both as surprised as everyone else: Abby had cut herself off midsentence and was doing a fairly good goldfish impersonation; Tony had carefully schooled his features back into blankness. She made a move like she was about to step forward, but Tony… recoiled from her: though he never actually moved, the increase in distance between them was apparent. Under ordinary circumstances, she probably would have kept going anyway, pushing until he understood she hadn’t meant what she’d said and she had erased the hurt her temper had caused. But nothing about the day had been ordinary, and now was apparently no time to start, as Vance added to his record of impeccable timing during his tenure as NCIS Director by appearing on the bridge.

That’s Jenny’s spot. The thought ran through both Tony and Gibbs’ minds like a squad car with flashing lights and screaming siren, but neither of them bothered to say it.

“Miss Sciuto.” The man’s voice was too damn loud. “Do you have the test results I asked for?”

When Abby opened her mouth, it was readily apparent to anyone with two firing neurons that she wasn’t planning to bring him up to speed on whatever tests she had running. Before Gibbs could even start to consider a preemptive strike—or the catastrophe that could result from her voicing her thoughts—McGee stepped in front of her.

“She just came up to ask for my help. We were on our way back down.”

McGee tipped his chin up, silently daring their new director to challenge his assertion with a look that rivalled the one he had worn when he’d told the US Deputy Secretary of State to stick it. By this point, Vance had made his way to the bullpen, and for all the descriptions that could have been attributed to him (ass, bastard, ersatz, soi-disant), “stupid” was not really one of them: the man nodded once and let McGee guide Abby back to her lab. CCU’s newest agent tightened his grip on her arm and muttered something for her ears only before she could utter any protest, and then they were both gone. One crisis at least temporarily averted.

With two gone, Vance turned his attention on the remaining two, since they were in his direct line of fire and there was only so much he could do about Gibbs. “What are you two still doing here?”

“Well, sir,” Tony drawled with a perfectly straight face, “our new assignments don’t begin until 0800 tomorrow. We’re well within our rights to remain until then, and it may well take us that long.”

There was no actual disrespect in his tone, and though the refusal of titular address did not go unnoticed, Vance could only glare: he couldn’t technically kick them out until it meant they were violating either orders or security, and what was he going to do? Give DiNozzo a slap on the wrist for calling him “sir”? Unlike Shepard with her not-entirely-unreasonable hangup about “Madame Director”, he couldn’t claim impudence. So he took the only smart option open to him: he left, heading back upstairs, where he could at least proceed with rearranging his new office.

Once Vance was out of the way, Tony simply closed himself off: there might as well have been a wall erected around him. Ziva made a few attempts at conversation, but when she received only polite, minimal responses as he began to gather his things, she gave up and did the same. Gibbs made himself scarce, disappearing long enough to get another cup of coffee and timing it perfectly: when he exited the elevator, Ziva was there with her last box in her arms. Two and some years ago, he’d honestly thought he’d seen the last of her when she’d been standing in his basement over the body of her half-brother, and that idea hadn’t bothered him much. Now, toe-to-toe with her (as she regarded the second coffee cup he held in his other hand with some measure of confusion), he found himself wishing he knew how to keep her there. But those were answers to be found in another Pandora’s Box somewhere, and he couldn’t afford to unleash any more plagues until he found the cure for the current one.

“Ziva.”

As she stepped into the elevator, she murmured in response something he could neither hear clearly nor understand. “What?”

Turning, she leaned against the frame to keep the door from closing, and repeated, “ ‘In this business we have to hang on to each other—or we may hang next to each other’,” this time in English. “It is something the head of the Mossad Academy said to my cadet class.” She hesitated then—only a hairs’ breadth of a hitch in the flow of words, but one Gibbs noticed easily—and he shot her a look. “I told that to Jenny when we were in Europe. I do not think she ever truly believed that.”

And so it came true. Neither of them said it, but they both knew it.

“We have different principles at the Mossad than you do, you know,” she continued. “They do not even let us use the agency’s name—we call it ‘the office’, because we are constantly told our operational principles are, ‘by way of deception, thou shalt do war’.”

Though he was the only one within earshot, Gibbs found himself wondering how much of that she wasn’t technically allowed to say. She had always been closemouthed about the Mossad, letting the reputation of assassin precede and define her, and he wasn’t entirely sure why she was telling him this now.

“You Americans do not follow so much of deception, of lying, of crafting personas and covers for everything you do—at least not officially in this profession. Because of that, you are all vulnerable. But you are also at an advantage, because you ‘hang on to each other’ by choice, not requirement. And that, Gibbs, is why I say I will see you again.”

She didn’t let the doors close, and he met her stare for stare—time had taught him that where words made themselves unavailable, staring would often suffice—finally saying drily, “We’re all liars and crackpots in this country, Officer David.”

A small smile turned up a corner of her mouth, but as he began to walk away, she called out his name again. He turned, shooting her a questioning look.

“Tony,” she began, but he waved her off as best he could with both hands full.

“Go. I’ve got it.”

Dipping her head just once, she backed up, but left her foot in the doorway. “Thank you.”

He knew full well the thanks were not limited to her concerns about Tony; he chose not to acknowledge that. And though he would have much rather have not answered, he’d had enough of leaving things hanging lately. “You’re welcome.”

In answer, she just gave him a look—one that said she knew what he meant but would not accept that, and then she let the doors slide closed. Taking a sip of coffee, he just watched them for a long moment, then turned to reenter the bullpen, where Tony was preparing to grab the last of his things and leave. He stepped up to the side of his senior field agent’s desk—because they would always be his people, damn it, no matter what political ass tried to say otherwise—and set the second cup of coffee on down.

“Boss?” Tony looked up, green eyes confused.

The words of correction that had come so easily when addressed to McGee stuck in his throat this time, so he settled for, “Transfer’s a bitch, DiNozzo. You’ll be up all night.”

The glance bounced off him and skittered away, though the cup was used as an excuse for the lack of eye contact. Gibbs refused to buy it, but he also wouldn’t embarrass his agent by commenting.

“Thanks, boss.”

A long glance later, during which the younger man tried to look everywhere but at him, he finally said quietly, “She’s going to hate you for a while.”

“Better you than me, boss,” came the immediate answer, and Gibbs didn’t quite manage to hide his surprise, because this time Tony met his gaze squarely. “I’m just her friend, Gibbs. But you—you she needs to believe is invincible right now. Better the blame fall on me than her faith in you shatter, even temporarily.”

“So you take the blame for something that’s not your fault?”

A small, bitter smile quirked his agent’s lips. “It’s a no-win situation; I picked the lesser of two evils.”

“Did you really?”

He got a raised eyebrow and an incredulous look. “Since when do you ask cryptic questions?”

When they’re necessary, Gibbs wanted to say, but he couldn’t, because he knew how that would sound. It’s not your fault, he thought. The words wouldn’t come for that, either, and he wished he’d said them earlier—like when he’d first made it to California, instead of back in Abby’s lab. Something else sparked in the younger man’s eyes: regret, maybe; sadness, certainly. Then the chance for words was gone, and he just smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Abby and I have been through worse. We’ll… we’ll figure it out eventually.” He picked up his last box and slung a backpack over his shoulder, though one would have thought he’d have done so the other way around. “You’ll see McGeek more than I will, so tell him not to forget how to shoot, will you?” Walking the long way around his desk, he neatly avoided Gibbs. “Break in your new team gently, boss. Scaring them off only works so well.”

As if on cue, the elevator dinged open to release a woman who might have been a secretary, and with one last nod, Tony was gone. Gibbs was left standing by the desk, facing a set of files on three people he didn’t at all care to get to know, since there was no way they could ever outdo their predecessors, and wondering why an almost full squad room felt so damned empty.

  
_Feedback is always appreciated._


	2. Diffusion & Equilibrium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Spoilers: Spoilers: 3x04 ["Silver War"]; 5x07 ["Requiem"]

Sighing, Tony sat back on his heels, surveying the contents of his bag with a kind of resigned dismay. He was allowed on board only what he could carry—the Reagan was no luxury liner with suites on par with a small house—and that basically amounted to one actual bag. It was this process he hated, the sorting, the choosing, the sudden, rapid determination of the necessary from the unimportant.

He’d never had this problem before: when he’d left his parents’ home on Long Island, it had been for Ohio State and they’d already disinherited him six years previously. He’d never harboured any plans to return, so he’d taken what he needed and forced himself not to look back, no matter how tempting the lure of possible change became. The same had been true of campus: he’d lived there for four years, and though he’d blended in, played the part of the jock and the frat boy and enjoyed himself, he’d also made it a point to never settle completely. When he’d left, his things had fit neatly into his car. By then he had landed a spot with the Cleveland PD, but when it started to go sour two months after he switched to homicide, he’d made the choice to resign. Thus began his pattern: two years at each department, and then he found some reason to move on. It was never enough time to acquire more than he could take with him. Until now, when two had suddenly become seven.

He sighed again, picking up the bottle of beer next to him. Before he could take a sip, there was a heavy pounding on his door, and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. It didn’t matter that he was in the farthest room from the front door; the only person who would blatantly ignore the call button in favour of banging his fist against the wood was Gibbs.

Heaving himself up from the floor, he picked his way through the apartment, refusing to let the impatient banging force him to move any faster. He paused just long enough to set his beer on the kitchen counter, then stepped into the front room and pulled open the door.

“Hi,” he said after a beat. The exhaustion bled into his voice and he knew it, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care.

“Well, hi, DiNozzo. You gonna let me in, or should I just stand here all night?”

Tony just stared at him for a minute, then gave a slight nod and stepped back, pulling the door with him just enough to allow Gibbs in.

“I assume you haven’t eaten,” the older man said, and Tony shook his head, letting that stand for a verbal response. “Good. Where do you want this?”

Raising an eyebrow at the proffered six pack and pizza box but opting not to comment, Tony gestured at the table in front of the sofa, relieving Gibbs of the beer and setting a bottle down. He disappeared into the kitchen with the rest of it, sticking it in the fridge. Under the assumption that Gibbs would do as usual and make himself at home, he returned a few minutes later with plates, a handful of napkins, and his own drink, only to find the other man still standing.

“So now that I’ve let you in, you’re just gonna stand _there_ all night?”

He kept his tone level, just hinting at amusement because he still wasn’t sure why his boss—former boss, he corrected himself—had come to his apartment at two in the morning, brandishing pizza and beer like a cross between a peace offering and a white flag. Besides, now that he had smelled actual _food_ , he was starving, and starting a conversation he thought could easily kill both their appetites wasn’t a terribly appealing prospect. So he slid two slices onto a plate and held it out, one eyebrow raised in silent query, and Gibbs took the offering, seating himself on the sofa and tossing his jacket over the back.

“Watch it,” Tony began. “It’s—”

Gibbs hissed softly, yanking his hand back, and Tony shook his head.

“Well, I was gonna say it’s hot, but I guess you just figured that out.”

Gibbs glared. “Ya think, DiNozzo?”

“Only on occasion and when I have to.” The younger man shrugged. “Take that as you will.”

His flippancy was rewarded with a headslap. “Don’t, DiNozzo,” Gibbs warned, but the edge that should have accompanied the words wasn’t there.

Tony just shook his head. The bottle in front of him was not his first of the night, nor was beer the only alcohol he’d consumed, and though he was far from drunk, his tongue was a good measure or two less guarded than it usually was around his boss. “Ask anybody, Gibbs. They’ll tell you I don’t know the meaning of the word, much less how to do it.”

The grip on his shoulder was almost painful, though the tone remained level. “You wouldn’t have been on my team so damn long if that were true.”

A spark of surprise came and went in bloodshot green eyes before Tony turned back to get his own dinner and throw the news on in the background. Unfortunately, the evening’s top story happened to be the death of the director of a federal agency. Flinching visibly, he changed the channel. Twice more, and he gave up, cuing up a CD on the changer in the cabinet. God only knew when he was going to be able to use it again, and whatever came up had to beat the endless reminders.

The former Marine declined to comment, so his charge neglected to express gratitude for something he wasn’t at all sure he was supposed to be grateful for. They ate in silence for a little while, letting the music in the background fill the silence. It did its job well, but as Gibbs leaned forward to grab another slice, he shot Tony a curious glance.

“What is this?”

“Artist is Afro Celt Sound System, but I have no idea what genre this falls into. It was one of Abby’s CDs, and she gave me a copy at some point or another.”

“It’s… interesting.”

Tony grinned. “Isn’t it? Makes for good driving music.”

“Doesn’t strike me as your usual fare.”

“It’s kind of not. Then again, it’s not really Abby’s usual fare, either, so what the hell.”

That was met with a long hesitation as Gibbs chewed over his next his question. He wasn’t sure why watching Abby and Tony… well, _fight_ was the wrong word, but regardless of the verb that applied to their exchange, it had bothered him. Maybe it was just a throwback to the tone of the whole day, like one more thing going wrong had been the final tip of the scales, but the entire incident hung on the fringes on his thoughts, nagging at him.

“Are you sure you two will figure this out?”

Tony barked a short, harsh laugh. “You’re like a dog with a bone, Gibbs—anybody ever tell you that?”

“My wives—all four of them—my mother, Franks, my sister—”

“You don’t have a sister.”

A beat, in which Gibbs was unsure whether or not to be grateful for the fact that Tony had stopped him before he could say “Jenny”; then, “I’m sure she would have if she existed.”

The younger man huffed out a half-laugh. “Yeah, bo—Gibbs. Abbs and I will be fine. It’s not like I’m married to her—if we don’t fix it right this minute, she’s not going to file for divorce and swing a nine iron at me.”

Pretending not to notice the slip and glaring at the jibe instead, Gibbs took a sip of his beer instead. It was darker than he usually drank (though, granted, he didn’t usually drink beer, period), but his agent had good taste, and the flavour gave him something else to focus on.

“How does the new team look?”

Attempting not to choke on his beer and be subtle about it, Gibbs tried to look like he was considering the question; Tony just hid a smirk.

“Green,” came the answer once the older man could speak properly.

A raised eyebrow was directed his way as Tony reached for his own drink. “And?”

“And what?”

“Green isn’t a definition of incompetent, Gibbs,” was the mild reproof. “I was green when you hired me. McGeek was green as they come in the field. Ziva… She and Kate had a different brand of experience.”

“You weren’t green,” Gibbs countered sharply. “You had seven years of homicide under your belt when I found you.”

“Yeah, well, ‘green’ is relative, especially under your criteria,” Tony countered with a grin, amused by the older man’s attempt to change the subject. The teasing earned him another headslap, but it lacked its usual force, so he persisted. “So how do they look?”

For reasons he was unwilling to admit, Gibbs couldn’t muster more than a shrug. He certainly wasn’t the only one who could be like a dog with a bone and was well aware that he would get no peace until he either answered the question or got angry enough to shut Tony up. Lacking the energy for the latter option, he resigned himself to the former.

“Unimpressive.”

“By which you mean…?”

“What?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Why? _Why_ are they unimpressive?”

Again, Gibbs shrugged. “Good solve records on their teams, there’s some Air Force and Secret Service history in there, but… nothing jumps. It’s just… they’re too textbook. There’s nothing remarkable that would have made me choose them.”

He toyed with the edge of the label on his bottle, loosened by the condensation, and Tony stayed silent. Questions of what had made them— _him_ —remotely deserving of Gibbs’ approval ran through his head, but he didn’t voice them; Gibbs heard them anyway. The usually erratically vocal man’s unwonted silence tugged words from the Gunnery Sergeant’s throat, like the silence itself was unnerved by its own presence and wanted to leave. So he spoke, and though it wasn’t Tony’s usual obscure film references and random associations, it was (for Gibbs, at least) the equivalent.

“Kate at least had the balls to get in my face, and she learned quickly in the field when she put her mind to it,” he began explaining. “McGee was stubborn and good at what he’d chosen; Ziva… well, Jen kinda threw her at me, but she’s a damn good shot and a quick study. You’re sharp. You see the things others don’t. Your mind works differently—makes connections that take other people three times as long. No training _teaches_ that.”

“But we’re not talking about them. Me. Us. Whatever.” With a wry expression at his own confusion, Tony shook his head, but his boss got the point anyway, so he continued, hiding his surprise at the veritable speech. “We’re talking about your people.”

The implication, the casual acceptance that such a description no longer applied to him, to Ziva, to McGee, was like the slap that came when you fell into water face-first: cold, stinging, shocking. “Damn it, DiNozzo, you _are_ my people!”

Tony shifted back slightly, surprised at the other man’s sudden, unexpected, uncharacteristic outburst. For once, _he_ was the calm one. “Gibbs—”

“You’re the only one who didn’t ask me, you know that?”

Shaking his head in confusion, Tony narrowed his eyes. “Ask you what?” he asked finally, when it became clear he wouldn’t get an answer without prompting.

“To fix this, to snap my fingers and make it right, without question that I could.”

“I didn’t hear—”

“I didn’t say they were all verbalised,” Gibbs snapped. “McGee looked like someone killed his sister. Ziva started muttering about Mossad principles at me. Abby… well, you heard Abby. You didn’t say anything.” Setting his plate down, he turned to face the other man more squarely. “Why didn’t you?”

He was met with a long, sweeping look that made him feel vulnerable in a way he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. The lack of… was it faith? had stung, yet he was unwilling to admit that to himself, much less anyone else. But that one look seemed to make the denial irrelevant—Tony was a surprisingly good interrogator, a fact of which Gibbs was more than well aware, but he had so rarely been on the receiving end of that particular skill set that reminders still surprised him. Then he flashed back to the day he’d decided to cancel his “retirement”, to the conversation they’d held in his “office”, and he couldn’t help but be thankful that this time, at least, Tony wasn’t mad at him.

“Because,” Tony finally began, green eyes firmly holding Gibbs’, “if there’s one thing Jenny’s mission taught me, it’s that you can’t fix everything, you can’t account for everything no matter how hard you try to keep your ass covered.” Something that might have been pain flashed through his eyes, but he didn’t look away, instead continuing, “Whether it’s your heart or your head or a fluke or a freak accident, you can’t cover every single base in every possible alternative. Do you remember what I told you—after you got back and decided to stay?”

Repressing the urge to ask if “psychic” should be added to the list of attributes in the agent’s personnel file, Gibbs just raised an eyebrow. “We said a lot of things that day, DiNozzo—what are you referring to?”

Accompanied by a sound too harsh to be a chuckle and too soft to be a derisive snort, Tony answered, “I said I had been told over and over again that I wasn’t you. What I didn’t tell you was that no matter how many times they said that, I was still in charge of the team, and they still expected me to fix everything, even if they didn’t actually believe I could. Every failure reinforced that lack of belief; every failure meant another standard I wasn’t living up to, but the expectations never changed. Not from Ziva, not from Abby, not from McGee, not from Jenny; hell, not from the whole damn agency.”

Drawing in a breath, the younger man ran his hands through his hair, and Gibbs tried not to flinch. He’d been… cavalier about his leaving, his returning, about the shoes he’d left for his senior agent to fill. He’d assumed the derision he’d heard about could be chalked up to scuttlebutt, and so did nothing about it. But Tony, when it mattered, did not brag, nor did he request pity, and Gibbs mentally slapped himself, because he should have known better: his agent would play up the trivial, unimportant minutiae, but anything more weighty was borne quietly. Then Tony started talking again, and the former Marine yanked his thoughts out of the past as if it were his drill sergeant speaking.

“So I didn’t—I’m not—asking you fix everything this time. It’s not because I don’t think you want to; I know you’re going to pull every string you can to make this go away, but there may come a time when you’ve unravelled the whole damn tapestry and have nothing left to pull. If you fix this, nobody’s gonna be happier than me—god knows I don’t want to spend who knows how long drifting in the middle of nowhere on a ship—but I’m also not going to back you into a corner.”

“So you don’t think I can.”

It was said as a statement, not a question, and the answering smile was a mix of resignation and amusement.

“Were you listening to a word I said?” Gibbs opened his mouth to answer, but the younger man glared at him until he shut it again. “I said I don’t _know_ if you can—there’s a big difference. Bureaucracy is a bitch no matter where you go, and politics is up there with it. You’ll be fighting with both, and if wishing made things come true, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. So I know you want to fix it, and I think you could probably walk on water if you really wanted to, but there may be parts of this that are out of your control.”

Setting his plate on the table, Tony ran his hands through his hair again. “If I hear from you again, it’ll be to tell me to get my ass back to DC. If I don’t, I’ll assume this got more screwed than it already is.”

A sharp, calculating look was sent his way. “You think I wouldn’t get in touch otherwise?”

“You didn’t while you were in Mexico,” came the blunt answer.

“I was—”

“Retired, I know,” Tony cut him off. He seemed to be doing that a lot that evening. “But Stan Burley; Vivian Blackadder; any of your other former agents; hell—Paula.” It still hurt to say her name, even now, but it had regressed to a dull ache from the vicious stabbing it had been in the midst of the _La Grenouille_ fiasco. “How many of them do you stay in touch with?”

“None,” Gibbs admitted grudgingly. “Not unless a case comes up.”

“My point exactly.”

The smile this time was perhaps a little sad, and something about that—whether in light of the abysmal past several days or the fact that he didn’t want one more thing ending on a bad note—made Gibbs say, “You’re different.”

That evidently caught Tony off-guard, because the surprise written across his face stayed there for several moments before he managed to overwrite it with his usual grin. “Why? ‘Cause I stuck around to let you bark at me for seven years instead of two?”

There were times when lies, white or otherwise, were called for, but when Gibbs started to give one of his usual sarcastic responses, he stopped himself. The other man had spent enough of his life being told he wasn’t worth whatever was currently under discussion, and that evening shouldn’t make one more. “Yes,” he finally answered.

For the second time in approximately as many minutes, Tony DiNozzo was caught off-guard. Taking advantage of that, as much to prove his point as to smooth over a possibly awkward moment, Gibbs pulled an object wrapped in brown paper out of his pocket.

“Here.”

Almost hesitantly, the younger man took it, shooting a questioning glance his way, but he just waved vaguely, indicating it should be opened. Green eyes widened at the well-crafted folding knife pulled out. _6 November 2007_ was engraved on one side; on the other, _LJG to TD_. The questioning glance became one of confusion as he tried to decipher the significance of the date, feeling like he should know what it meant and wondering if that was how spouses and partners felt when asked to recall anniversaries and birthdays. Gibbs saved him.

“I never did thank you properly for that day on the pier. I was going to give that to you as a birthday present, but since I doubt this will clear in two weeks, I figured I might as well give it to you now.”

“You don’t—”

“Yes, I do.” Blue eyes held green without room for argument. “You should not have gone in, Tony. Ducky was convinced you’d caught pneumonia and every respiratory infection known to man. That you risked yourself anyway deserves thanks, and I never did mention it.”

It was as close to an apology for the impacts of personal involvement as Gibbs would ever come, and Tony chose not to cheapen it with a crack about… something—anything. Instead, he looked back down, turning the knife over in his hands, relishing its weight. The appreciation only grew as he flipped out the blade and tested the balance. Then he picked his gaze back up, the almost patented impish light dancing in his eyes.

“So I should stop carrying my sidearm now?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

The shared smile was perhaps the first sincere one that had been seen on the face of any NCIS agent since Shepard had been shot in an abandoned bar two days ago. The moment certainly would not last, but it was a step away from the chaos of internal politics. So Gibbs finished off the last of his beer, set the bottle down, and thought he should probably go. Still, it irked him to leave things hanging, and though he hated to destroy the quasi-peace they’d finally reached any sooner than necessary, he wasn’t sure how much of said peace his agent would keep if he didn’t say what he’d wanted to say since… _yesterday_.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said finally, almost conversationally, and though Tony should have needed a minute to understand the reference, he just shook his head.

“Vance—”

“Vance is an ass following a political agenda,” Gibbs snapped. Tony wasn’t the only one who could cut people off. “He also has a vendetta about as bad as Jenny’s was, only his puts us in less of an international clusterfuck. You,” he continued, pointing a finger at his agent, “were following orders and don’t deserve punishment. Vance knows that’s damn well true, which is why he can’t officially demote you.”

The other agent’s smile was humourless. “That’s what they said at Nuremburg, and look where that got them,” he pointed out, voicing the thoughts that had been relentlessly chasing themselves around in his head. “I’m probably the only fuck-up in agency history across the board to ever get promoted for killing his director.”

“Jenny got herself killed,” came the sharp reminder. “She _wanted_ this, because to her, this was better than the alternative, but she wasn’t taking anyone down with her. That doesn’t make her right, but it doesn’t put you at fault, and it certainly doesn’t make you a fuck-up.”

He turned to get his light coat, then aborted the move midway. “And another thing: Vance isn’t stupid. He knows full well you turned down promotions to stay here—if you declined Rota to stay, he’s not going to believe for a minute that _letting_ you do that would be punishment.”

Tony’s expression turned slightly rueful. “You knew about that?”

Gibbs’ look was measuring and pointed. “Yeah, DiNozzo. I knew. I’d have known even if Jenny didn’t tell me.” Then he sighed. “You should have taken it.”

“I’m not—”

“Ready? Yes, you are.” That didn’t seem to be convincing enough, so Gibbs turned the tables. “What did I say to you after I got back?”

The wry look shot his way mutely scolded him for not being original enough. “We said a lot of things after you got back. What are you referring to?”

“Smartass,” Gibbs shot back, but he didn’t quite succeed in suppressing the accompanying grin. “I told you I wouldn’t have left the team with you if I didn’t believe you could do it. You were ready for your own team years ago. Rota would have been a good move for you.”

Tony’s low chuckle surprised him. “I told you I should have had that notarised.”

It was Gibbs’ turn to roll his eyes, but he opted not to comment, instead reaching up to grip the younger man’s shoulder. “You’re a good agent, Tony, and a good man. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Tossing out a grin of his own, he added, “Including me.”

“Can I have _that_ notarised?”

The teasing hopefulness drew an honest laugh from Gibbs, and he shook his head in exasperation. “No, DiNozzo, you may not.”

Slipping the knife in his pocket, Tony leaned back to stretch, popping his spine in a way that made Gibbs wince and shake his head. They both had things they hadn’t said—there always were, and it seemed in their profession such things multiplied almost exponentially—but neither man particularly wanted any further, possibly maudlin, conversations that night. They were on a good note; both wanted to keep it that way. So Gibbs returned to picking up his coat, slinging it over his forearm. When he leaned down to pick up his plate, Tony stopped him.

“I got it, boss.”

Accepting that, for all that it went against instinct to leave borrowed things lying around, he straightened. “Okay. So now that I’ve probably outstayed my welcome, I think I’ll go.” Manoeuvring around the sofa, Gibbs paused. “Unless you’d like a hand packing.”

The third time in one night that he’d floored Tony. A record of some sort. “Nah,” he answered once he’d regained his feet. “You’ve got to go in tomorrow just the same as I do. No sense in you staying here.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yep.” Tony stepped around the table and walked the older man to the door. “Thanks for dinner. Breakfast. The food.”

Huffing out a laugh, Gibbs nodded. But he’d only taken a few steps down the hallway when his agent stopped him again, calling his name; he turned.

“Yeah.”

For a beat or two, Tony didn’t say anything; then, “It wasn’t your fault, either.”

A long look was shared in which no words were necessary, for, like Tony, Gibbs didn’t require the extra minutes to reacquaint his brain with the subject at hand. Finally, since the hall was a bad place to have more of a conversation (which was perhaps why it had been started there), he dipped his head in an abbreviated bow, a mirror of Ziva’s to him earlier that day.

“Luck, DiNozzo.”

Returning the nod, Tony smiled slightly. “Thanks, boss. You, too.”

_Finis._

_Feedback is always appreciated._


End file.
